Monoprice sells a super cheap Toslink to RCA DAC:
http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10423&cs_id=1042302&p_id=6884&seq=1&format=2&style=
For ~$25 it's a great little piece for quickly and compactly setting up a simple satellite speaker for general listening in another room. And, I see folks selling these now on eBay for ~$48 + shipping!
I actually bought one and am using it with an Apple TV, but I'm playing it through a Tivoli stereo that (despite the great radio) doesn't sound so great. I also brought it to my work where I've got a MacPro and decent powered monitors (Samson). I did a bunch of back and forth listening with that setup and was kind of surprised to hear very little quality difference in sound and resolution. Again, not that my hopes were that high with a $25 DAC...but I kind of figured the difference would be immediately apparent (compared with the internal card on the MacPro).
My real question here, to finally cut to the case, is whether anyone out there has dealt with the Monoprice DAC and done a good comparison between it and other, far more expensive, DACs? While I have a good low-budget hi-fi rig (Cambridge 540 cd player, NHT speakers) upstairs, I've got no other DAC around with which to run my own comparison. Now that we've got a new Mac Mini in the house as well, I'm thinking more seriously about the music server model, perhaps even replacing the CD player upstairs with a wifi receiver of some sort and a DAC.
So, anyone done any comparisons between this DAC and other lower budget USB and/or Toslink DACs out there?
